Artificial intelligence company G42 has said construction work on Stargate UAE is progressing rapidly, with the full build-out of the 1 gigawatt AI infrastructure cluster expected in three years.
Announced in May with OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank, Stargate UAE is being developed by Khazna Data Centres, a G42 company, within the 5GW UAE-US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi. The team is building the first 200 megawatts of the 1GW mega-scale infrastructure on an "accelerated timeline", G42 said in a statement on Thursday.
"Construction is now well under way and progressing steadily towards the planned 2026 delivery," a representative said.
Khazna is working on the first phase of the five-phase AI cluster, Hassan Al Naqbi, chief executive of Khazna Data Centres, said at a session in Gitex on Thursday. "Just to give you a sense of size – this project spans about 10 square miles of land dedicated entirely to building not just a data centre, but an entire AI ecosystem," he added.
"We’re thinking beyond infrastructure – about the community, industry, R&D and logistics around it."
The next stage will focus on constructing the foundation – and over the next 18 to 24 months, "we’ll be building out the first operational campus, which will be showcased and discussed with our key partners and stakeholders", Mr Al Naqbi said. "Overall, we’re targeting full build-out of the entire cluster within the next three years."
Khazna is working on a design-to-build approach with civil, structural, and architectural construction well advanced, G42 said. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems are also being finalised and key modular components have entered production.
The project has completed procurement of all long-lead equipment and has received its first deliveries of mechanical systems to the site.
"I have to emphasise the acceleration of this programme – what we’ve achieved in just 12 months is remarkable," Mr Al Naqbi said. "I don’t think anywhere else in the world such progress could happen this fast."
